Ever since we heard about the Slacker Portable we were a little excited, but the object of our portable streaming radio affection has just come up for its first review seating. According to the fine fellows at Wired, it is slacking its way into their hearts as we write this very article.

Making its debut at Texas' SXSW music fest is Slacker, a new hybrid music service that…
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Among the things they liked about the player included the supported artworks, band biographies, ability to store Wi-Fi keys and the option to have access to a free, or paid, enhanced music services. The Slacker Portable also auto refreshed channels when it detected a trusted network, as well as automatically refreshing whilst recharging.

What didn't go down so well was the buggy touch sensitive strip; the jog dial was far better, and was used instead. The free mode meant only 6 songs could be skipped per hour. as well as the terrible obligation to listen to adverts during your music time. As the stations are cached for the times you are out of range of a wireless network, there is little room left on the player for your own tunes. (Either 500MB, 1.5GB or 4GB, depending on the capacity of the player chosen.) Content cannot be downloaded from a Mac, and the 10-hour battery life was not great.

The folks at Wired easily looked past the Slacker Portable's shortcomings, and we think we might follow suit. Now, why is our review unit taking so long to get here? Damn slacking postal service. (Sorry.) Check out the full review, as well as some unboxing pics by hitting the link. [Wired]